'Beast' roaring back to life in new documentary
By Scott Williams
swilliams@lakegenevanews.net Jan 31, 2018
Bray Road Beast promo
A promotional poster shows the image of the Beast of Bray Road to be depicted in a new documentary film. (Contributed photo/Regional News)
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ELKHORN — The next sighting of the Beast of Bray Road could be on the big screen.
A documentary film-maker is coming to Walworth County to chronicle the legend of a wild creature that locals say they have seen stalking a rural road on the outskirts of town.
The creature has been described as a werewolf or other wolf-like animal that some witnesses have reported as walking on two legs.
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There are, of course, plenty of skeptics who question the existence of such an animal.
Film-maker Seth Breedlove said he is not coming to Walworth County to prove or disprove the stories, but only to capture a legend that has been spooking people around here for years.
“Our films are not meant to convince you,” Breedlove said. “All we do is tell the history and the story.”
The Beast of Bray Road story began in the early 1980s with reported sightings of a peculiar creature along Bray Road, a two-lane country road just east of Elkhorn.
The creature was most often described as a wolf-like animal that was described occasionally as walking upward on its two rear legs. Witnesses reported an animal between five and seven feet tall, with nighttime eyes shining in yellow and green.
Sightings of similar creatures had been reported elsewhere in Wisconsin dating back to the 1950s.
Linda Godfrey, a former writer and artist for an area newspaper, recalls an outpouring of reaction when she first published accounts of the beast, along with her own sketches drawn from eyewitness accounts.
Godfrey heard so many stories that she compiled them into a book, “The Beast of Bray Road,” which was published in 2003.
Although she does not believe there was a true werewolf — the fictional man-turned-beast character — Godfrey said she has been impressed by the number of sightings and the depth of people’s belief that something strange is out there.
“That’s what I keep hearing from everybody: ‘I saw it, and I know it’s real,’” she said. “It’s very intriguing to people.”
Godfrey has agreed to be interviewed for the new documentary film, to be titled, “The Bray Road Beast.”
Not everybody associated with Bray Road is happy to see the story being revisited.
Jeffrey Hubbard, who lives along Bray Road, is a non-believer who said he has grown tired of sightseers, hunters and TV news crews coming around to try spotting the mysterious creature.
Having grown up on Bray Road, Hubbard, 65, said he and his family know the area well. They have seen all kinds of farm animals and wildlife, he said, but never a wolf walking upright.
“There’s never been a beast out here, and there never will be,” he said.
Breedlove plans to bring his film-making crew to Walworth County in April and to spend several days interviewing witnesses and visiting Bray Road. The crew will recreate sightings of the strange animal using a customized beast costume.
Breedlove, who hails from near Akron, Ohio, is a low-budget film-maker whose company, Small Town Monsters LLC, has produced six documentaries about similar creatures in other communities.
“The Bray Road Beast” will cost $12,000 to $15,000 to produce, and will result in a film about 70 minutes in length.
Breedlove plans to premiere the final product at a West Coast event this fall, and then market it to audiences on the internet and maybe theaters or television. He hopes to arrange a local screening somewhere in Walworth County.
Of all the local monster stories out there, Breedlove was drawn to the Beast of Bray Road because the legend has persisted for so long and because it stirs up memories of classic werewolf stories.
He hopes to include in the documentary some context about the history of werewolf lore.
“It’s exciting,” he said, “to play around with the historical aspect of this.”
